


only fools fall

by indemnis



Series: B.A.P Bingo Challenge [9]
Category: B.A.P, K-pop
Genre: M/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-14
Updated: 2015-09-14
Packaged: 2018-04-20 18:40:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4798229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indemnis/pseuds/indemnis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We are our own people; they take turns to die and they are reborn as themselves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	only fools fall

**Author's Note:**

> For the B.A.P Bingo Challenge Square: Reincarnation

Yongguk dies. It was a fatal car accident; he died on the spot. A lot of blood, even more screaming, his mother crying in the hospital, the works. He never really imagined what it would be like to die; he was thirty, he had expected a long life stretched out before him, a sad pathetic one filled with several decades of twirling in front of a computer desk and lamenting the thing that is his life.

So when the car’s gear jammed, Yongguk thought he would see his life’s events flash before his eyes like a rolling film, fading in and out, cutting at the edges, vignettes eating into the picture. He must have died really quickly, because he skipped that entire thing and ended up in a dark, cold room.

So this must be Hell. Heaven was supposed to be white and filled with feathers and singing.

“’Sup,” is the voice that comes up, a boy that looks like him—Yongnam?—is polishing his nails by a faraway table. Yongguk realises he is naked, but somehow the stark nudity surprises neither him nor his younger friend.

“Who’re you?” Yongguk asks, slightly startled at the fact that he still has control over his senses. He thought dying was supposed to be unfeeling, senseless and then he might transcend to Heaven or Hell or wherever he’s supposed to be going.

The younger friend rolls his eyes, purses his lips in impatience. “Your memory from the past. I’m you.”

Yongguk frowns, taking a clearer look at the boy through his myopic vision, a blurry scrawny figure with freckles in the correct places, the twitch of the eyebrow at the same degree.

“You _are_ me.”

“Ah, yes, thanks for stating the obvious, older self.”

“And definitely keeping that attitude,” Yongguk scowls, slightly annoyed at his younger self, but of course emotions come as a surprise to him as well. “Why are you here?”

“I’m your existential phase in life. Do you remember a period of about two weeks where you finished watching that documentary and started to have those immensely stupid thoughts of the meaning of life and humans’ significance in the universe and all that stuff? I’m you, from back then.”

Yongguk stares. He remembers them, actually, now that he’s mentioned it. He had probably just conveniently lodged it at the back of his mind, hoping that they’ll never come back out. After all, real life had to go on and he wasn’t about to go on thinking about the incredulities of the universe on a hungry stomach.

“Why am I here?”

“Getting to the real important questions, old man.” Young Yongguk jumps off the counter and gestures for the older man to follow him. They come to a door and Yongguk suddenly realises that he had been in his childhood home. Why was it so cold and dark? He never did remember it to be so.

Yongguk stills, but the boy just points at the door. “When you walk out of here, follow the path. You won’t get lost—you haven’t before, so you won’t—if you stick to it and then you’ll reach the end.”

“And then what? I go to Heaven? Hell?”

“Nah. You’re reborn.”

Yongguk’s forehead crease relaxes. “Oh, that’s cool. Do I get to choose?”

Young Yongguk smiles, the kind that hides secrets, the kind that people who speak in code have. “You already have.”

“What do you—”

“Just shut up and go, Bang Yongguk.”

And then he is pushed out through the doorway and he stumbles out, blinking as he traces his way down the path.

*****

Zelos is dead beat after receiving that telegraph from his mother. She has been persistent in her ways, insisting him to find a bride soon, for it is unacceptable for a British gentleman of his age to be without a family.

Her words have gotten to him, without a doubt, and he worries that despite all his gentility and wealth, he might indeed go without a wife for the rest of his life. What would they speak of him? Needlessly, they would speculate his behaviour for impotence or an interest in a different sex, both accusations outrageous for his reputation.

As he ponders the severe consequences of his lack of partner, Zelos doesn’t notice a furtive figure lurking in the darker shadows of the alley, ready to pounce. He jolts when the bulky man holds a knife against his neck, his voice hisses loudly.

“’and over yer cash, lad.” He is uncomfortably close and Zelos struggles to escape his grip. He keeps his fingers closed in firmly on the young gentleman’s arm, his putrid breath against Zelos’ shoulder. “Yer do what I say, lad, I let ya go,” he says, a smile in his voice.

Zelos attempts to shake him off, his arms waving around crazily, his throat ready to scream for help. The robber witnesses how he poises himself to yell and he is ruthless. _Zap_ , and he slits Zelos’ throat, without even giving him a chance to holler for help.

As the young British gentleman is left to die in the alley with blood oozing from the large opening in his neck, his pockets empty, his eyes vacant and mind almost going blank, he suddenly remembers how he no longer needs to answer to the public about his marital status.

Freedom in death.

The boy wakes up in his mansion, the way the curtains flow when there is a slight breeze, the humid summer air makes him want to summon the servants in with their convenient fans.

“Dear Sir, there has been an invitation to the ball next week, hosted by Her Highness herself. Would you honour her with your presence?”

Zelos frowns. Didn’t he feel the excruciating pain on his neck, the way all his body’s contents emptied themselves out of its husk, and then sudden blankness? Why is he here and why is his servant acting like everything is just the same as always?

“Charles?”

“Yes, my dear Sir?”

“Where are we?”

“Why Sir, we are in your loyal residence.”

“Are you real? Am I?”

“Reality is merely a concept from the physical world that you no longer belong in, Sir.”

“I’m dead, am I not?”

“Yet as alive as you can ever be, Sir.”

“Quit speaking in riddles. Do tell me what I have come here to do, Charles.”

“I apologise, Sir. If you may grace me with your company, I would love to bring you to your final destination.”

“Will you then explain what exactly is it?” Zelos leaves his armchair, trailing behind the servant.

“Reincarnation, Sir.” The servant’s back is hunched, absentmindedly answering his questions, gaze trained on the ground.

The idea is foreign to Zelos. He hadn’t for a moment considered having a different life after death, living in another body.

“Do we get to keep the souls?”

“Yes Sir. Unfortunately not the memories.”

“Zelos will cease to exist?”

“Existence, Sir, much like names, is transient. One day you survive and the next another replaces you.”

“Who will I be in my next lifetime?”

“You, Sir, will be a man known as Peter, or Moon, as you will prefer to be called. His father is an illegal immigrant from Korea, one who has come into a good amount of money through ill means and frequents gambling dens and prostitute houses while his mother tends to him and dies young.”

“That is horrible! I do not wish this upon my soul, Charles; I do not wish to reincarnate.”

Charles has a forlorn look in his eyes, sad lines crossing his face as he bows even lower. “Unfortunately, my dear Sir, it is not a choice.”

“And I will remember nothing about Zelos?”

“Yes, Sir. Nothing.”

“Do I do good as Moon, Charles? Do I help people and try, despite my horrible background, and attempt at a good and worthwhile life?”

Charles looks like he’s about to cry, unsure whether or not to tell Zelos the truth. He hesitates, but he sees the insistence in his master’s eyes. He is here to give answers to questions, neither remembered in any moment but this one.

“At twenty-seven, you murder a young British gentlemen along King Street, slitting his throat as he was about to scream for help. You robbed him of all his money, pleased with yourself, feeling little to no guilt for killing an innocent man.”

*****

Daehyun’s death came rather slowly, the kind that took years and years, the kind that makes one go ‘oh thank everyone I’m finally dead’ because the pre-empt had simply gone on for too long.

He was a patient of an infection, thankfully in the later years of his life, and while technology was managed by the androids and they were now _this_ close to finding a cure for it, the poor man didn’t live to see that happen.

As he woke up, he was relieved of his chronic coughing, the throbbing migraine, the heavy wheezing, the tubes in his flesh. Daehyun felt like a new man again, despite the strands of white hair lodged securely in his scalp.

“What the heck are _you_ doing here?” he asks, narrowing his eyes, perfectly capable of speaking now that he isn’t struggling to cough every two minutes. Yoo Youngjae stands before him, hands on his hips, a bored expression on his face.

“Didn’t want to be here. Apparently I’m someone important in your life and that’s what you choose to see.”

“What do you mean?” He hates Yoo Youngjae. Maybe _hate_ is a harsh word, but Daehyun will use it anyway.

“I’m just like… an image of ‘someone significant in your life’. I’m actually just like a puff of smoke or something, but you chose to envisage me in your subconscious, so here I am.”

Daehyun rolls his eyes, silently glad that he can now do it without fearing that it would mean he was going to bite on his tongue, get an epilepsy relapse and die off. The dead have nothing to fear. Hail the dead!

“That’s stupid; why the hell would I choose to see _you_?”

“Ask that stupid head of yours, maybe.”

“Did I also choose your level of obnoxious to max, perhaps?”

“Don’t know, but you sure are acting that part to me right now.”

“Why the hell am I here?’

“Way to shoot your mouth off about the imaginary netherworld.”

“It doesn’t exist?”

“No. You’re going to be born into an irritating infant soon and it’ll be the damn fucking worst, bro. Trust me on this.” Youngjae flicks his finger and makes Daehyun follow him. Daehyun is busy staring daggers into his archenemy’s back, wondering if it’ll make the fellow die off as well.

Stupid Youngjae, 214 years old in their world and still fit as a damn fiddle. Daehyun on the other hand has to die from a stupid infection.

“I still want to know why I get to see you here.”

“I told you, you _wanted_ to see me.”

“I’m pretty sure I didn’t.”

“You don’t actually know.”

“So I don’t know that I chose the world’s most irritating guy to be my messenger angel?”

Youngjae rolls his eyes. “I’m not an angel. They don’t exist.”

“Then what the heck are you?”

Youngjae stills, slightly unhappy at how dense the guy can get. “Well, I can tell you what you’re going to be.

You’re going to be an infant in a world where people are always scrambling for more, but you don’t always know what it is they are looking for. When you are finally old enough to know your rights from wrongs, you’ll realise that we’re always finding remedies to not be what you are now.”

“Dead?”

“Yeah. The elixir of life, or some nonsense. Then one day, when you are fifty-three and a half, they will have found a way to rejuvenate human cells and you will go through the treatment, like all under-sixties have to, and you will live till, well, a while. You’ll also know a horrible guy in high school called Jung Daehyun and you’ll love him and—”

“Wait, what the fuck, what?”

“Yeah. You’ll know that dickhead and you’ll love him, and you guys have a few late bro nights that you never talk about again, but you guys bicker like there’s a forever for you to go on doing that for and then at 215 years old he dies and you’ll feel like you’ve lost a bit of yourself in his death.”

“I’m going to—what?”

“Ugh, your soul’s been through this ritual for like how many times, just how long will you get it and stop asking?”

“I’m going to be _you_?” Daehyun’s voice is a whisper.

“You _are_ me. You already are, in the same dimension of Time we lived in, and it is also you who is in Yoo Youngjae’s body, also the guy who brings you your beverage every afternoon, the lady who sold you that condom, that kid who poured ice cream over your jeans.”

“I’m _you_?” he screeches at this point, which Youngjae frowns at. “You’re so damn stupid. Yes, yes, yes, you are me and I am you and you are also the other few billion people in the world’s population; you are the captain of the Titanic and the passengers in the ship that died with him. You are Einstein and all the people who have gained from his knowledge in one way or another. You are Himchanchan, the idiot pop singer on TV, and all his million fangirls who flock to his feet.”

“This is—wow this is—”

“And you’ve already had this similar conversation for who knows how many times.”

“So the universe is just… me?”

“And the other few other billion people, depending on how you see things, but yes.”

“Wow. That’s… Wow.”

“I know. Now run along and live m-your life.”

“Wait, you said you loved me?”

“Shut up.”

**Author's Note:**

> I was thinking "wow this is my kind of au I should do something cool with it!" but I ended writing this ridiculous plotless story from such a wonderful prompt /bangs head against wall/
> 
> Anyway, this was inspired by The Egg by Andy Weir. Please check it out if you can; I was completely mindblown when I read it for the first time.  
> The title of this story is taken from Troye Sivan's 'Fools'.
> 
> One more prompt to go! Thanks to everyone who had stuck around till the end haha I really enjoyed myself so far! Hopefully I'll be able to tick off that last one too /crosses fingers/  
> Thank you for reading <3


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